CCH Bulletin Summer 2000
Privatisation, privatisation, privatisation
The government's recently published Green Paper Quality and Choice: A Decent Home For All signals the continued marginalisation of social housing.
John Prescott introduces the paper by referring to what he describes as unprecedented levels of prosperity. It is clear that the government feels that the appropriate form of tenure for this prosperous society is owner-occupation. The paper proposes increasing the market share of owner-occupied homes from the current figure of sixty nine per cent.
For younger members of the prosperous society that have not yet settled down, the appropriate form of tenure is the private rented sector. The government wants to see a rise in the amount of high quality private rented accommodation.
You don't need a degree in maths to know that these figures add up to a reduction in the amount of social housing. There are a number of positive points in the paper, but they must all be viewed in this context.
The government is uncharacteristically prepared to increase spending to further these aims, specifically in the form of tax breaks for private landlords and mortgage relief subsidy for poorer owner occupiers to ensure the former building societies get proper returns on their investments.
Whatever reforms are proposed for social housing, be they good or bad, are therefore unfolding in an environment where social housing will continue to be marginalised and stigmatised, welfare housing for the poorest sections of society.
Tenant controlled housing does get a mention but this is bottom of the league table, after private landlords and Housing Associations. The government states that the three main priorities for improving the management of social housing are: stock transfer; the creation of arms length management companies; and PFI. Resident control is a good idea but is not included in these priorities. To coin a phrase, the government's priorities are 'privatisation, privatisation, and privatisation.'
The paper shows an openness to new ideas such as community allocations policies and a new form of tenure called commonhold. There is some movement on energy efficiency. However, some of the reforms they propose will make the situation worse for tenants in all types of tenure.
We all know that some local authorities are appalling at administering Housing Benefit. Yet one of the proposed solutions is to hand this over to the private sector companies who have a proven track record of making a bad situation worse.
A promising chapter on affordable rents talks of the 'restructuring' of rents and implicitly acknowledges the fact that stock transfer will put upward pressure on rents. It concludes by lauding models of rent subsidy in the USA and Canada where claimants are forced into bonded labour schemes as a condition of receiving rent subsidy. The government acknowledges that the shift from bricks and mortar subsidy to personal subsidy has been damaging but has no proposals to reverse this trend.
These criticisms aside, the fact that tenant controlled housing gets a mention at all is of major significance. It is a tribute to the lobbying work done by the housing co-op movement and a call for the continuation of this work at all levels.
by Phil Beardmore, Balsall Heath Housing Co-op
